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Something wicked this way comes :: let’s be blunt … it’s Utah. You’d think they’d be extra not wicked :: what with even their underwear wearing codified and regulated :: but no … they’re totally wicked. Utah is the heart of darkness :: but you fuckers don’t care … my multiyear ball busting Utah coverage is about as popular as not cussing {aka not fucking popular}.

But I’m the smart one … and y’all the ones who told me there wasn’t a syndicate in Internet Marketing. Utah matters in this fight … the mostest. So I went right quick to read Eric Peterson’s John Swallow has some balls article … and then the Salt Lake Tribune’s frontpage follow-up. While reading both articles :: Matt Cutts and Google served me the above {and below} ads for Utah’s Prosper … a boiler room … and the current focus of my fake affections.

Prosper has boiled down leads for many of this blog’s favorite anti-fucking-heros. For example :: until recently they were part of a Get Motivated / Stephen Pierce scam-three-way that was grinding down Get Motivated seminar participants by the thousands … and producing millions of dollars per month for the sick machine.

And of course :: the twice removed King of the Gnomes Mike Filsaime … was recently telling us about how awesome Prosper was compared to all the other couple hundred dozen boiler rooms that he’s mouth sampled in his quest for GnomeProfits dot com. I asked his royal {twice removed} Gnomeness for some success stories of the sort he might be compelled to provide if he wanted to comply with the FTC’s {or many state} BizOp disclosure rules … I guess I’ll just keep waiting for that.

Part of Vitale’s appeal is that he combines spirituality and metaphysics with making money; hence the title of his book, Spiritual Marketing. Among the services he offers his students is a $7,500 joy ride around Austin, Texas, in his 2012 Fisker Karma all-electric luxury car (he used to hold classes in his Rolls Royce Phantom, but he’s since gone “green”). I’m still not sure if it’s the chance to spitball with the author of Your Internet Cash Machine, the fancy dinner, the Karma’s reclaimed wood interior, or a combination of the three that makes this trip worth six months’ rent.

Harris slaps Vitale’s fat face as hard he can {it leaves a big red welt}. Then he’s all like :: “Stop the car, I’m getting the hell out of here.” As he gets out he spits on the floor of the car. “You’re a god damn criminal you Mr. PotatoHead mother fucker” :: sayz Dan as he gives Joe the finger with his left hand while tucking his right into his fashionable bomber jacket pocket for effect … some Aerosmith song starts playing.

… but no that didn’t happen … and instead ABC made a Secret Millionaire program so that the same mind game motherfuckers could hawk their fraudtastic wares to a national audience free of charge.

Anywayz :: Google’s disclosed and undisclosed tracking systems rightly assume that saltydroid@gmail.com is interested in fraudulent unicorn hustles :: and pushes me ads accordingly … I’ve mentioned it before. The Prosper ads {which will be costing them a fortune to run} lead to a video sales page that screams …

How Prosper Helped Me Make Money and Live The Life I Really Wanted.

Make Money 24 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week. You could even make money in your sleep!

No programming or advanced technical skills required. You don’t need a college degree to make big money online.

Be your own boss. You will finally have a say in your own destiny.

Prosper is literally going to change your life :: you don’t need anything but a credit card … and a deep underlying sense of sorrow.

These lies are supported by a video testimoanial of the sort that the FTC forbids in its rules … and then ignores in real life.

Ivan hit the big time with Prosper coaching. He was a school teacher working two extra jobs to support his gym :: tan :: laundry … lifestyle. Then he gave Prosper a bunch of money after they pretended to give him a job interview … and now he’s living the life that Princesses Diana didn’t dare to dream. He’s so successful that he and his wife can afford vacations {complete with pictures} :: and …

“We’ve been able to save enough money, that my wife and I, at this point really do not have a concern about what happens if something happens.”

They’re so financially secure that even “if something happens” … they’d be totally fine. Doesn’t even matter what kind of something happens … totally fucking fine. How did they achieve this feat in a highly competitive online environment where almost nobody is making money?

I’m glad that I pretended like you asked that … the Wizard of Math is how! Wizard of Math is a website that sells educational items via Amazon.com and its behemoth web and IRL infrastructure. The Prosper coach told Ivan and his wife that their life changing money-making website should “sell something you’re passionate about” … because that’s what it said in the Prosper script and the “coach” isn’t someone who’s had success on the web or in business or they wouldn’t be a “coach” at some scammy ass company in Provo.

You can’t “sell something you’re passionate about” :: unless you’re passionate about something where you hold some definable competitive advantage … in which case lucky you. But “I was a teacher” is NOT a competitive advantage :: although it is a nice thing and I offer a golf clap {you should have been paid more in the first instance Ivan Levine}.

Go to the Prosper success story Wizard of Math site now :: and pay $2.49 for your DAZZLE STICKERS JESUS …

Wizard of Math can’t compete with Amazon in the dazzle jesus market … or any other market. Wizard of Math has never had any web traffic … and it never will. Many brainwashed bumble brains created new accounts on The Verge in order to leave Scamworld comments like …

“So I guess Amazon is a scam now too huh Joe Flatley? I see your selling a Kindle book so yur the scam. I’d give Frank Kern my daughter.”

No Amazon’s not the scam :: you poor demented little d-bags … they’re the winner. They’re part of the reason why “… you can’t make money” is such a fucking truth. From the Wizard of Math about page …

The company began selling 500 products in 2001 and anticipates distributing 25,000 products by 2008.

This site hasn’t been touched for years :: and yet Prosper is paying Google to pay the Salt Lake Tribune to tell me that it’s a life changing success story … and you can too!

When a person starts to nibble at the edges of the get rich quick nightmare :: Google knows … and immediately increases the frequency and perceived legitimacy of the temptation. The average web user doesn’t understand how the intentionally opaque ad networks operate. And the average oldster new to the web {often the target demo} is accustomed to a real relationship existing between a local paper and their advertisers. An ad for Prosper on a story about John Swallow being a scammer would seem to imply that the editors of the trusted old school source don’t think that Prosper is a scam.

It’s a dirty fucking trick :: and one that Google has run on fucking millions of vulnerable Americans during a horrible time for us … and a fucking sweet ass profitable time for them. Yes that sentence has three fucks :: but I mean … come on!

The Google AdSense admin panel allows publishers to opt-out of Google’s self-acknowledged evil :: but it’s set to “co-conspirator” by default …

All the scammers at least have the decency to pretend that they’re not the “get rich quick” sort of scammers :: but Google doesn’t want to bother with the pretext … cause they’re a big fucking deal and above the law … unlike poor black folk who can suck it.

Says Google to humanity …

“They’re get rich quick schemes :: and we sell them … deal with it.”

If it’s too good to be true … it probably is. My least favorite thing to hear people say given the total complicity of almost every aspect of our society in this clear and obvious scam. Everyone looks the other way while the dirty money is rolling their way … and then pleads ignorant innocence and slinks off in silence when the consequences start to manifest {to use a word NotDoctor Joe would fully approve of}.

I’ve previously mentioned Mittington Romney’s close ties to Utah fraud :: and Utah fradusters … most especially the members of Utah’s deeply disturbing political order. Tonight Mitt makes the Hajj to his holy land to once again stroke the darkness for dollars :: from The Verge …

This evening (June 8), Prosper CEO Randy Garn will join Nu Skin founder and chairman Blake Roney and “some of the best entrepreneurs in the country” at a $2,500 per person reception for Mitt Romney — $10,000 per person if you want to get your picture taken with the presumptive Republican nominee. In a 2011 article, Mother Jones magazine singled out Blake Roney as one of the multi-level marketing (read: pyramid scheme) heavyweights that constitute “Romney’s biggest backers.”

The fake robot didn’t hear about this fundraiser from The Verge :: but rather from the Stephen Pierce co-founded “marketing group” SANG who … typically … promoted it as a “networking” opportunity.

Since proximity is power, here are just a few of the people who will be there.

One of the most forward thinking entrepreneurial governors in the country, Governor of Utah Gary Herbert, Senator Orin Hatch,, Blake Roney-The Billionaire founder of Nuskin, Josh James-the founder of Omniture who recently sold his company for 1.8 billion dollars. I have been told a lot of very successful entrepreneurs will be in attendance.

Proximity is power :: and yet as a society we’ve taken to regularly giving the devil proximity … whenever and wherever it will give us a boost to the bottom line … or a half roll of nickels.

Prosper CEO Randy Garn :: co-host of tonight’s Romney fundraiser :: isn’t a shady businessman … he’s a parasitic fucking joke. He deserves to be hunted by the government :: but instead he’s been embraced and held out as an example of success by a Utah fraud machine that long ago stopped thinking about the human misery which is its sole meaningful export.

I’d like to see the fundraiser money returned :: and Utah cleaned up :: and a change in policy by Google :: and one fucking ounce of compassion shown by society for the millions of already vulnerable people scarred for life by an experience with this “industry” that we’ve all long enabled … but I won’t.

Because dirty money is still money … and what can the broken do but cry?

But this does mean there’s still room in the sparkle Jesus market. And the sparkle hoshun market hasn’t even been slightly tapped. And if someone could come up with a dazzle sparkle hoshun jesus joint venture, watch out internet marketing world!

@Burned By Fire, @CC, It was sad that Joe Flatley didn’t mention Vitale’s Magic Wish Dolly templates that he sells online. Those just go SO hand-in-hand with the “Magic Web Site” that “cleans you” as you look at it.

…and I love how IM is getting hammered like Amway/Amway Marketing organizations et al. got hammered and exposed in the early days of the internet as money and time sucks par excellence.

People finally get to see that the game is rigged against them and that it’s not a matter of one’s psychology or how “positive” you are. It’s a b.s. deal with jackf**ks nickel and dime-ing you every step of the way.

Frankly, I’m puzzled from the idea of thinking about if Joe doesn’t do it. And probably Joe doesn’t know about it yet, but I think many people can and will have to also become his biggest fan from him going on to play for Jay Leno’s show every day once and when he shows how he really truly can unlock the secret guitar-miracle within him.

In fact, from the time he gets done from reading my comment he can’t have any choice but to make the guitar-miracle event happen for his own life once he gets wonder-chorded to the feelings in his body with each passing moment that passes while he’s wondering about it.

And Joe, for just in case you are reading this one from me, you probably already began going about noticing how much more love you can feel from us for when you make your guitar-playing on Mr. Jay Leno’s show and are even now feeling so much hatred and Joe-mockery dissipating as you get moving on to finish up to the end of my comment pretty soon when it comes at the end of it at some point later on.

And Joe, I don’t know about if you will take up all our advice for trying up to the Leno-guitar-performing idea. But I want to make you to get the idea of what will happen if you stop now and don’t do it and what about what will happen then for you? Certainly, I think it will be something you want to think about for at least some small amount of time even if it’s really tiny-time where you’re thinking about the idea of feeling so much Joe-joy playing for the Jay Leno show soon.

Again, to repeat for you, Joe, Mr. Fire, Vitale…only you can make it all happen, but it’s that it means about that it’s only you with the help of secret messages coming from catalogues flying about in the sky for you to choose from .The trick is for you to take advantage of this Jay-Leno window into your soul and grab the fame from guitars that you know we know you can make for us and for you, too.

I know about you probably being worried,anxious, conflicted, scared, terror-stricken, panicky, overwhelmed, nervous, jittery, jumpy, and jaunty (actualloy, not that one), about this big one-time-only-once opportunity for you to have just laid down right onto your feet. The truth of the matter, Joe, is from whatever I’ve been saying to you and only you about if the right thing to do is to go make your audition for playing guitar for Mr. Leno and find out the truth for yourself.

Love, Peace, & Fire, and some other things I can’t think of yet right now,

I just got back from my favorite Friday night country auction. Yes, while America’s most entrepreneurial parasites were partying down with Mitt “Magic Underwear” Romney, Ron and I were sitting in an auction house in the Middle of Nowhere, Texas bidding on nearly-life-size porcelain cats, rotisserie cookers, dog beds, and office chairs.

But my mind was elsewhere.

I couldn’t wait to get back home.

Oh, no.

I am writing in one-sentence paragraphs again.

When I did finally get back home, I raced to my computer and was greeted by this post.

My eyes widened.

My hands were shaking.

And all I have the steam to say at this late(ish) hour is… WAY TO GO, Salty et al.

I will blog more about this tomorrow, and not just in one-sentence paragraphs.

This article is awesome. I read the Verge article, and I think yours was a lot better than Flatley’s.

It’s a little depressing to close with “what can the broken do but cry”, but, IMHO, it’s still better than Flatley’s which towards the end seems to say that all the Bad Things in the world are caused by evil Republicans and the super-rich. I think the broken can always hope, actually, but it’s going to take an awful lot of work, and I can’t see major change coming anytime soon. (Since using the government’s mind control lasers would be unethical.)

The most enlightening part for me was about how Google’s Ads home in on you: if you do searches for MMO it causes Google to feed you ads for scams. I think some of the more legit web folks have stopped using AdSense/AdWords because of things like that.

The Ad Sense control panel makes a good illustration of your article’s theme (besides the other “we’re fucked” theme) that the scamming is endemic to our culture. We can imagine the Google AdSense control panel as representing our thoughts just below the surface. So it’s like: everyone knows it’s Get Rich Quick, they just won’t call it that.

But the AdSense control panel does ’cause it’s just slightly behind the scenes and it was probably programmed by some geek who just tells it like it is, and who never really thought about the part where Get Rich Quick means scam and scam means fraud and fraud means deception and that means… people are getting hurt.

People are gonna have to get past caveat emptor and blame-the-victim before it can start to get better. Everytime someone does that, they’re mentally absolving the actual scammers of their wrongdoing. E.g. “What’s that? You clicked a IM-MMO link and lost money? Oh, well that was your fault then. Why didn’t you know better?” The question should be, why the fuck are people allowed to keep selling this?

Oh yeah, I forgot, you answered that one too: MONEY
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Furry cows moo and decompress.

Well I know a lot more about this than Flatley :: and while he was becoming nerdcore awesomeness writing for Engadget … I was becoming lawyercore awesomeness. We do different things … and right now he’s like my #1 favorite person in the whole world.

The first Scamworld was obviously going to be a big story and any smart outlet should want to tell it for selfish popularity based reasons. But now it’s almost like they care … and that is making me feel fucking relieved.

PS :: At the moment … Republicans and the super-rich ARE causing most of the evil.

PS :: At the moment … Republicans and the super-rich ARE causing most of the evil.

Yeah, I know. It’s just that, on that site, writing that directly into the article as if it’s a given truth fully accepted by the reading audience is not likely to go over well.

But then, of course, here’s me making assumptions again. Perhaps the vast majority of The Verge audience are moderate or Democrat and perhaps Flatley already knows that and Flatley doesn’t have to worry about alienating the small remainder. *shrug*

Re Gary Johnson: he might be cool. Generally, I like the libertarian stance on social issues, just not so much on corporate issues.

Speaking of the “sick machine”: Politics. How is it ever going to get less corrupt with all the money in it? And all the things a politician has to do in order to get enough money to win a state or national election?

@Wyrd, I agree with you about the sick machine that is politix. I’m also right there with you on libertarianism, I think. I am definitely a libertarian (leaning towards liberal) on social issues, but regarding corporate issues, businesses have shown the type of damage they can do even when they’re fettered, to say nothing of when they’re unfettered.

Certainly Obama’s nose isn’t clean either when it comes to campaign contributors or supporters. After all, Obama has the Big O and other New-Wage luminaries in his corner. No one who runs for office will be clean as long as political office at virtually any level in the US goes to the highest bidder. As someone said in a Facebook commentary on the recent Wisconsin debacle, we don’t have elections in the US any more. We have auctions.

While Joe Flatley — or whoever wrote the headline — may have been stretching it a bit with that headline (which I nonetheless loved, Romney non-fan that I am), the article was still well-written and, IMO, said some things that needed to be said. I think Salty did a good job here and on his previous Utah posts of elucidating the ties between the Romney campaign (and other Republican campaigns) and the boiler-room/MLM scammers.

And BTW, @SD, I didn’t totally snap to it last night till after I’d walked away from the computer, but nice nod in the opening sentence to the late, great Ray Bradbury.

Consider this. Jon Corzine is STILL bundling for Barack Obama. Are you kidding me? The creep stole billions from investors. It’s right out there in the open, and he’s still free to run at the highest levels of power.

@Wyrd, I am commenting here because unlike The Verge comments (which has become a crapshoot) here we can have a civilized conversation.

I don’t think I said that “all the Bad Things in the world are caused by evil Republicans and the super-rich.” What I actually said was: “The intersection of politics and Scamworld doesn’t end at the state level.” And they do intersect. To what extent, I don’t say: all I know is it’s something that should be investigated. Anything beyond that, you’re reading into.

Sure, I characterized the people behind Romney’s Super PAC money as “super-rich supervillians.” Because they are. And because it has a nice ring to it. (One of the benefits of being a senior editor at The Verge is I get to indulge in wordplay from time to time.)

Do I have to even mention that neither the Republicans or Democrats have the exclusive on political corruption? Because I will if I have to, but I thought that was so patently obvious that to make a big deal out of it would be to insult the intelligence of my readers.

The obnoxious commenters at The Verge (who are a statistically insignificant number — something like .02% of our readership) perceive me as saying things that I did not say. Based on the fact that Mitt Romney’s name is in the headline. They’re ignoring the real problem, which is that these boiler rooms rip people off — and that they’re allowed to get away with it. Who allows them to get away with it? Exactly.

But, to my article: this wasn’t meant to be a major expose or anything of the sort. When I got the interview with the Prosper salesman, something that NEVER happens, I knew I had to share it. Sooner than later. But, you know, I also talked to a couple more people so I added them to the mix, then this Mitt Romney fundraiser happened and I had to mention it.

Seemed pretty straightforward to me. But I guess nothing is straightforward when your editor-in-chief gives you an awesome headline, and it’s a slow news day.

What better air cover can a scammer get than to say they were just recognized by the White House? Now that’s a travesty.

It’s pretty sad when our leaders and our wannabe leaders don’t even care where the money or endorsements come from. Romney’s staff has no excuse for not doing their homework, and President Obama has no excuse either, especially since he has full access to this country’s intelligence and enforcement agencies.

On another note, Joe, have you had any contact with the FTC? After your first Scam World piece, if they fail to look into any of that, they are absolutely useless. Maybe that should be your next story. You can call it, “A Failure To Act.”

I am commenting here because … here we can have a civilized conversation.

Funny you should say that :: cause the unholy specimen in my next post seems to disagree …

I understand your feelings, but all I can tell you is that I have seen many lies and distortions of truth about many different people on the SD site. And when reasonable people try to make a comment to correct the facts, they are flamed and insulted until they go away.”

5 year free membership to The Salty Droid {towels not included} to anyone who can name that d-bag. That’s called foreshadowing motherfuckers … and I’m the king of it!!!

Anywayz :: must be nice to have people writing your headlines :: and doing your videos :: and layout :: and editing :: and fact checking your stuff :: and buying you pencils :: and lawyers protecting you :: and a super cool video show to promote all your stories :: and your very own Twitter account. Tough life for you … are there massages also? Or fucking pedicures maybe? I wouldn’t know because I’m from the streets … exactly like Stephen Pierce.

@Dr Geek, Please,please,please let it be “BlogWorldCEO” who apparently has the same kind of parents as “Coach Handbags” and “Cheap sunglasses” had, judging by the way he presents himself in comment fields.

“C. Lee Peeler, President and CEO of the National Advertising Review Council and CBBB Executive Vice President, and Genie Barton, CBBB Vice President and Director of the Accountability Program, joined other privacy leaders at today’s invitation-only White House event. Barton welcomed the Administration’s recognition of the importance of accountability programs in the self-regulatory process. “The objective oversight provided by the BBB Accountability Program is critical to success. This partnership between the online advertising industry and BBB, working closely with the Federal Trade Commission, is a great example of how industry self-regulation can and should work.”

I will love to see even 1 or 2 of these fuckers pay for their crimes of thievery from average Americans. The corruption is so blatant, and unlike, say, banking or the military industrial complex, there is no {extremely} arguable “good” these fuckwads serve to society.

This is getting to the big money “behind the scenes” scamming of which those little IM Syndicate chumps are only the tip of the iceberg.

And seriously, this is the American economy? This must represent at least a serious percentage point or two of the entire US GDP (looking at the numbers)…

… a bunch of Government Endorsed MLM/Get-Rich-Quick Scams???

Seriously?? WTF FTC, wake up! I would say this is a 10,000,000 times more worthy investment of law enforcement effort than the $15B/yr drug war.

Super-nerds in charge of large corporations seem to willingly/wantonly/knowingly accept ‘All’s fair in business’. Having rationalised morality out of the way they happily stoop to cheating and deceiving. Later, when they’re billionaires married with children their conscience’s catch up with them and they conveniently become mega-philanthropists – or maybe not ….

Matt Cutts is the stooge of a couple of super-nerds and should know better. Or maybe he does know, which is even worse.

Either way, go get Google. They stink, and have done so for years. ‘Do no evil,’ my arse. Even ‘objective’, ‘balanced’ (be unobjective once in a while) Danny said ‘“I don’t think they were ever not evil.”’

SD readers might consider clicking on all these scammers’ ads and paid search results, AS MANY TIMES AS POSSIBLE, to drive up their Google costs (expensive!). Perhaps, just make it a daily habit. Quite simply, an army of people doing this would effectively terminate their primary channel of customer acquisition–paid search. They’ll still have their email list, but they can only scam those folks so long before the list begins to suffer serious attrition. Without a (profitable: return/cost) method of acquiring new suckers to ad to their list, they’re toast. Their biggest COST is customer/sucker acquisition. Do you think they’re going to acquire traffic via SEO, ie, Google believes them to the be the most relevant result for a given set of keywords… doubtful. Do you think they’re going to drive traffic via word of mouth from all the people they’ve fucked over… doubtful. That leaves PAID advertising, namely Google. Drive their costs up on that front (by simply clicking), and they’re toast. (Of course, this means fattening Google’s pocket, but we can deal with the NSA’s pet project, Google, later.)

Please, friends, consider not only hating. ENGAGE. (like SD :-) )

[Republicans and Democrats are owned by the same forces (Rothschilds) (not opinion — look it up), and are equally egregious to our supposed democratic republic.]

@Victory, That’s the thing. The little minnow fucks (thankfully) exposed on SD, are simply emulating the tactics of the serious criminals — the ones who wield the monopoly of force to take resources from one person (taxes) and give it to another person (their cronies). It’s basically one big holographic system of lies and social proof, fractals within fractals. I think the little minnow fucks like Kern and Dilliard are easier for the average person to wrap their mind around. The higher level scams go against the worldview that has been inculcated into us since we were children, which makes them that much harder to decode, due to inborn egoic self-defense mechanisms. But god dammit. Cannibalism is NOT okay, no matter what century you’re living in. Grow some fucking food for Pete’s sake, but don’t eat your fellows. Right? Am I alone in this sentiment? Do we just devolve back into the muck in order to drive a Land Rover and fuck chicks (Yanick)? Really?

@, Look, I get that you had an unfortunate encounter with Ayn Rand and Libertarianism before your world-view was fully formed and thus you internalized her juvenile sociopathy and failed to grow up into a human being, but altruism and social responsibility is genetically determined and a large part of how humans as a species have been so successful. We’re only normal and functional in a social setting with mutual responsibility and protection built into the fabric, and cultivating narcissistic personality disorder like the Randite ideal is pretty much textbook juvenile anti-human behavior.

Well, for whatever it’s worth, the video isn’t about that. The video basically says that the whole banking system is corrupt and evil, and that the Fed is a big con pulled on the American people by the Rothchilds… or something.

I can see how, from the point of view of the poster Anonymous / Victory, it probably seems that, that video and saltydroid.info fit together well–as the video also uses a somewhat tongue-in-cheek style, and it has various pop-culture references.

And then we have Joe // The Verge referencing “super-rich super-villains” — that fits exactly with the portrayal of rich bankers in the video.

Again–I could see that, that’s how things look from the poster‘s point of view. I’m not so sure@SD would agree.

It’s one of those situations where there are lots of little things that look to be true, or kinda true. But there’s no where near enough of them to put together an actual “smoking gun”. So instead, we get a video that mostly just makes big claims. At least it’s entertaining.
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Furry cows moo and decompress.

Ok. From looking at the notes or whatever on the video, and also thinking back to some of the other comments by this entity, I see some of the libertarian-ness you were referring to.

The first, and one of the best counter-arguments of libertarianism I ever heard is one line:

Libertarianism means: I have the freedom to get rich and you have the freedom to die.

I’m not quite sure where that comes from. I thought it was an Isaac Asimov quote but Google can’t confirm or deny. Since Google’s (more widely know to be) evil now, I tried Bing too. No luck.
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Furry cows moo and decompress.

@Melkor, If it makes you feel better to hate on people that aren’t 100% in agreement with you, despite the fact that they’re on your team, then have at it. I’ve never attacked other commenters on this site (other than Jeffries), and I won’t. Attack my comments if it soothes you. I’ll keep my fire directed down range.

@, Aynd Rand and her cult are my targets, you’re just …collateral damage. Unless you self-identify as an Objectivist Libertarian of course, in which case you’re actually one of the Bad People because nothing enables Syndicate-style sociopaths quite like Randite Libertarians who aspire to become the kind of imitation human beings that can sell people down the river to Prosper, NuSkin and whatever other well-camouflaged scam will contribute money to their PAC.

I’ve heard of Ayn Rand and her Objectivists before. I’ve heard that characters in her stories salute smokestacks and state cigarette smoking is a citizens duty to help the economy.

I haven’t ever heard anything particularly good about objectivism.

Still, I’m curious to know why you feel Objectivist Libertarians represent a great danger: is this based on some first hand encounter with their ilk or is it based on their stated goals and mode of operation?

Either way is cool. I’m just curious. I agree with you that objectivism is jacked up.

More specifically: it seems like part of the basic idea of objectivism is just to… be objective, practice critical thinking, etc. That part seems fine. But it seems to me that practicing critical thinking does not justify, and should not even be a path to, deceitful, crappy, sociopathic behavior.

Two different people can both state “I am being objective.” Yet those two people could be shown the same picture and still come to different conclusions about what they each saw. So, IMHO, the Objectivism movement is only claiming to be objective. It has actually morphed into a camouflage for a meme-plex of dain bramaged, ill conceived false beliefs.

Do Objectivists believe “The ends justifies the means?” That one is always dangerous at best, and a road to pure, undiluted evil at worst. It would be nice if the Anonymous movement knew that. Oh well.

@, Melkor. Dude, Foxtrot Oscar. Look, I get that you had an unfortunate encounter with Ayn Rand and Libertarianism before your world-view was fully formed and thus you internalized hating her juvenile sociopathy.

Great. Leave me out of it. I’ve never mentioned Ayn Rand or Libertarianism. You’re tilting at windmills of your own making, chump, and causing “collateral damage” among your own squad. How does that, smarty pants, in any way, further the mission of SD? You think promoting division in this site’s readership helps SD go after scammers? Really?

How do you describe attacking a non-threatening commenter over Ayn Rand and Libertarianism, when NO ONE, including that commenter, EVER mentioned Any Rand or Libertarianism? That seems about as NARCISSISTIC as can be, as you’re PROJECTING your OWN (self-absorbed) issues onto others.

Fuck, you want to criticize Ayn Rand and Libertarianism? Have at it. I’m sure you will get plenty of intelligent analysis, from all angles, from the commentariat on SD. YOU DON’T NEED TO ATTACK SUPPORTERS OF THIS SITE TO EXPRESS YOURSELF OR MAKE YOUR POINT. Just express yourself.

“only normal and functional in a social setting with mutual responsibility and protection built into the fabric”

Is it normal and functional to create “collateral damage” among your own social teammates? That seems rather self destructive (socially speaking).

Melkor, I’m calling you out. You’re a keyboard jockey punk, and a hypocrite. By all means, express yourself (particularly your burning desire to hate on Ayn Rand and Libertarianism), but please, here, behave yourself and be social… for the good of our fabric. Attacking well-meaning commenters on this site (who might, dazzle jesus, disagree with you about something) DOES NOT support SD’s mission to expose scammers on behalf of all the innocent people who are NOT as smart as you are. Those innocent people need you to get over yourself, and stay focused on the big picture, rather than your pseudo-intellectual-political egoic masturbatory hatefest on Ayn Rand, or whatever your flavor of the day might be.

The point: it’s NOT about you, Melkor. It’s about educating innocent people so that they don’t get fucked by scammers. Are you capable of getting over yourself and getting back on mission, little boy?

@, The Droid should accept Objectivists and Libertarians because holding your nose and accepting unsavory allies worked out so great with Ross Jeffries, I suppose?

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
― John Rogers

Mike Filsaime, Frank Kern, Dan Kennedy, Jordan Belfort and most of the Syndicate are Libertarians, a political leaning that lends itself well to fraud and grift since it places material wealth and ownership as the highest and only good a person can aspire to, and moral qualms about how that wealth is acquired is a non-issue. Half of Filsaimes “7 figure code” frauduct was simply a Cliff’s notes of the screed penned by Rand as “Galt’s speech” in her abysmally bad book “Atlas Shrugged”.

Under the Objectivist philosophy consumer protection is an invalid proposition, they operate under the delusion that the Efficient Market Hypothesis hasn’t been falsified and that information asymmetries such as that between the Syndicate and their victims either don’t exist or are just smart business when they do show up.

Objectivism is a cult based around the idea of the Nietshian Ubermensh with the will to power and the right to rule which lends itself extremely well to developing a functionally sociopathic personality and is a credible rival to Scientology, the Selfish-help movement centered around the Secret and the Syndicate cult of IM unicorns: http://www.worldcat.org/title/ayn-rand-cult/oclc/39914039

That’s ridiculous. A lot scammers espouse a belief in Jesus … so is this all Jesus’ fault too? Many of the mega churches preach a watered down “let’s all get rich” version of fake Christianity that has helped feed this sick machine … so can we blame all Christians for that?

Is the Constitution responsible for the insane-o right wing militias who form in the name of protecting it?

Are billions of Muslims to be blamed for the extremist actions and rhetoric of a few?

And guess what? I’m a libertarian. It’s not my fault that a bunch of uneducated nut-jobs who know shit about shit think that libertarianism somehow represents a sanction of capitalism without morality or restraints. That’s a misreading :: or prolly more correctly a not-reading … of libertarian writings.

So I guess if I decide to boot a bunch of people because they have disimilar political beliefs to my own … you’ll be the first to know.

@, Melkor. Your big words give me a hard-on. You are expressing your philosophy regarding Libertarianism. Good for you. I actually agree with some of what you have to say.

What do you NOT understand about NOT attacking your fellows, agree with them 100% or not. We’re on the same team fuckface, and we should be attacking the other side, even if we don’t agree 100%. Or do you think that arguing on our side of the line is more important that attacking those on the other side of the line, who think that lying and stealing is okay, regardless of the political philosophy used to justify it?

Here’s my sincere and genuine question for you: Are you and I allies, on the same team, or enemies, or somewhere in between? I hate ALL scammers. Where do you stand? Your answer will inform my future responses to you, fuckface.

Know what’s a REAL scam? Teachers unions and other public-sector unions. This army of scammers costs ordinary Americans untold riches while doing their very best to avoid disclosing how abysmally inefficient they are. Cutting teacher salaries by 1/2 and increasing class sizes by a factor of 2 would barely begin to address this catastrophy.

@Orenthal, Please tell me that’s a poor attempt at a joke. Teachers are the worst-paid public servants in the country; they work 8-10 hour days at the school site, and many unpaid hours at home every week. Sometimes much more, depending on what level they teach and where they teach. The teachers at my sons’ school are also required to be present at every PTA activity (hours every month they don’t get to spend with their own families) and they haven’t gotten a cost-of-living raise in 15+ years in North Carolina.

I’m going to go back to lurking again, but seriously – don’t go there. If we want to save tax dollars, let’s start at the top and work our way down, not start with people who are struggling to make ends meet and are barely above poverty level in my state.

Right here, right now your choices boil down to – Stand with the union or be ground to your knees under a corporate bootheel. Pick your poison, but I would rather not stand with the side striving to make Orwell’s dystopia a reality.

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever” -George Orwell.

Unions make up a tiny percentage of the private sector. The majority of government employees are unionized.

To the extent there are problems with unions today, they come from those in government.

For example, it isn’t an issue of teacher salaries/benefits. It’s public union “leadership” that creates 2-4 non-teaching jobs in a school district for every teacher in the classroom. It’s bloat that wouldn’t be tolerated in a private sector union workplace, i.e. a real business that has to turn a profit.

I could choose not to join, but if I didn’t join they were going to take $20 out of every paycheck instead of $25. (Those numbers are approx, and it might have been monthly instead of per paycheck, but I’m pretty sure it was per paycheck.) Getting paid every other week, that works out to $40 for a non-member and $50 for a member.

You could tell (or at least I could) that there was no sense in fighting it–either I joined so that at least I would theoretically have voting rights, or else they’d still take almost the same amount out of every paycheck and I’d get nothing for it. The name for the program by which they’d take money out even if I wasn’t a member was “Fair Share”.

Well–I say I’d get nothing… technically the way things are supposed to work, and the excuse they use to justify taking money out no matter what is that the Union is the agreed upon party that will represent the employee in any dispute between Labor and Management–even if the employee in question is not a Union member, they would still be represented by the Union.

In practice though, it didn’t seem to matter much–the only way you could get the Union to do something for you was if they happened to like you.

Unions for public sector jobs also don’t have striking power. And there is no contract between the Union and management, instead there’s only an M.O.U. (Memorandum Of Understanding).

This is not to say that the Union did not occasionally have battles with Management. It did. And sometimes it won.

But to my mind, it always seemed like a sort of joke. The battles that were had, and whatever victories that were won seemed fairly petty in the grand scheme.

If there was some issue that Management wanted to make really sure went their way, they’d just be very patient and get organized themselves temporarily.

Then they’d drop the whole thing and it’d be done in such a way that there wasn’t any lee-way or grey area in which to file a grievance.
————-
My position on unions in general has changed some over the years. I used to think they were the most important thing ever. Now I still think they’re important–but only in those situations where Management is totally screwing over its workers in a horrible way and there isn’t an easy way for those workers to find jobs elsewhere.

The problem is, unions tend to live on long past that sort of major conflict stage. Once fully established a union forces the rift between labor and management to stay. But since labor and management are actually just two parts of one whole, this is insane. It would be like if you had two parts of your bone that were trying to heal but some scar tissue kept the parts from healing properly.

Hey Orenthal! I know your style is to post a comment of “Oh you think that’s bad, what about this other unrelated issue that actually isn’t all that bad compared to what is being talked about in the article!”

I dig that style and I give you credit for finding something that works and sticking to it. However, I think it’s time to spread your wings little bird. Maybe check out that link below and learn a few new flashy tricks?

“But no that didn’t happen … and instead ABC made a Secret Millionaire program so that the same mind game motherfuckers could hawk their fraudtastic wares to a national audience free of charge.”

You don’t get it. ABC is owned by a giant multi-national corporation, part of the same power structure that wants the masses to believe that America is still a place where the determined, hardworking and smart individual can live the American dream.

It long since has ceased to be that, but the power structure that owns ABC, also runs the system that keeps people debt-serfs, wage-slaves, and a source of endless cash to bail out Wall Street, feed the national security state, etc etc.

These scammers are featured because they appeal to the fantasy that the power structure wants people to continue to swallow down.

I’m still working on the logic-puzzle Math-Wizard posed us when he told us about “What happens when something happens?” I’m going to try making a scenario-spreadsheet for solving it unless somebody already can tell me the answer.

@Jack, Oh I think I know why I have so much trouble with it is because I didn’t make the right question which is “What happens if something happens?” I think it will be an easier one for me to figure now.

@Anonymous – if all MSM allow him to write is a column that shares great recipes for carrot cake – then all well and good. They can get the other side of the story from this site, when they find out about it after reading about fab carrot cake recipies. Probably the sort of person who is keen on carrot cake recipies, is also the sort of person who needs to understand more about the dark underside of a sales culture that some might see as American as apple pie.

Otherwise – MSM do allow stories to break sometimes – may as well come from the horse’s mouth.

Most likely, MSM will one day, finally, break something FROM here…then Salty will be all the mainstream he needz.

All it takes is the continual hammering SD’s proven he’s perfectly capable of delivering here and the right combination of a slow news day and a bored, desperate “msm journalist” stumbling onto the site…

I get your point. MSM wouldn’t *be* MSM if a lot of people didn’t listen, watch, etc. Today, however, it seems the MSM is perfectly happy plodding along as they do…only breaking the occasional story themselves and usually just reporting on important stories breaking elsewhere.

@Head Honcho – lets hope it is so – the sooner mainstream happens the better. Agreed that in the mean time SD’s hammering is informative, entertaining and bottom line invaluable for a good number of people.

Randy Garn is such a fake. He lets people think he’s a Harvard Business School graduate when in fact he holds no degrees from HBS. He merely attended an educational program held at Harvard and misleadingly calls himself an alum. He also touts himself as Ernst & Youngs Entrepeneur of the Year, conveniently forgetting to mention that it was for the Utah region only and for “Communications”.

@SD, Stellar example being high school dropout Alex Jeffrys, who proudly proclaims himself mentored by the entire Syndicate and Joe Polish – and who also has a few recorded webinars up where he tells the story of how he didn’t actually make the money he claimed and was continually on the verge of bankruptcy until he set up his own boiler room operation – excuse, me, business coaching service modeled after Brunson and Filsaime – in the UK

@RT, Well I hope these people aren’t paying 25k for “do the things that are important to your business and focus on maximizing your time, effort, etc…”. Randy should know that already as a Harvard alum and all.

Meanwhile, in his June 12 blog post (the latest one as of today), Mr. Fire continues to recommend “coaching,” with a link to Miracles Coaching (Step 2 in the magickal success formula he used to achieve many goals and dreams, the latest being his debut as a professional musician). blog.mrfire.com/the-words-you-long-to-hear

He hasn’t published many comments to his post so far (as of today, June 20), but here’s one from a guy named Greg:

“Hey man. Awesome stuff. I know I have too much fear around paying money for coaching. Is there a program I could start with just to clear that particular fear? I think that’s probably a biggie for a whole bunch of people who are right on the brink of making huge breakthroughs.”

I know @SD’s frustrated that the public-spectacle style posts – and even the Awkward Crickets post – get more comments than the corruption-in-Utah posts with links to novella-length articles.

On the one hand, I’m guilty as charged. This afternoon I watched the public spectacle of “Anthrocon, the Furry utopia”, as videoed by @Joe // The Verge. On the other hand, I don’t have anything to add to Eric Peterson’s reports.

@Lanna, I’d say you’re right about the Bradbury reference in the title. And the homage to Bradbury is continued in the first sentence, as someone mentioned here earlier. :-) There may be other subtle references too that we haven’t noticed yet. The little fake robot is really quite a literary fellow, I’ve noticed.

I have a very strong feeling that more sh-t will be coming out about Prosper and some of its “partners” in the weeks to come.

Received some bad news, and decided to spend the day reading Cosmic Connie and Salty Droid, catching up and refining the BS detector. Then something happened which has me reeling-half hour ago phone rings and on the other end is Mr.Somename Calling from Mike Filsaime’s office to discuss Prosper. If I hadn’t been immersed in subject here, I wouldn’t know Prosper from porcupines. Yuck-weird.

@kick, Filsaime’s office has been calling me 4 times a day for two weeks.

Is no doubt a follow-up call to me buying the “Little Fish Blueprint” dvd a few weeks ago. The LFB program was clearly one of the latest IMM scams, but I’m always willing to spend a couple bucks (S&H on their “free” dvd) to see what the latest IMM scammers are up to — and what big-brother Mike deems worthy of his time and attention.

Unfortunately, I just discovered that I can’t block their calls on my iphone through Verizon — so I may actually have to take the call and tell them to take a leap. Funny part is that only on the last message did they say anything about being from “Prosper”…so now it’s just a pathetic joke.

Maybe I should tell them I’m still busy trying to get the 7-Figure Code to work after all these years? And I’ll call them back once I’ve made my first million???

@Jack was just telling us about the laws on recording phone calls, so maybe, depending where you live, you can give yourself permission to record the call and play along. Or you could ask them if it’s okay to record the call. If you tell them it’s for the Salty Droid, that should get you off the calling list post haste.

@Rezbi, Couldn’t agree more. James Fucking Brausch. Now there’s a real psychopathic, lying scammer. Not to mention a “supposedly recovered” meth head and practicing Mormon. If SD had been around a few years ago, he would have had a field day with the evil and vindictive James D. Brausch.

Right here is the perfect web site for anyone who hopes to understand this topic.
You know a whole lot its almost hard to argue with you (not that I actually will need to HaHa).
You definitely put a fresh spin on a subject that’s been written about for years. Excellent stuff, just excellent!

Google.. helping scammers scam since whenever they started selling ads I guess.

This is probably minor compared to the saltydroid.info rogue’s gallery in the sense that the scam is more straightforward. Still there is the person-on-the-phone-scaring-you-into-paying-them-for-nothing aspect.

Use Google to search for “Canon printer support” or “Microsoft support,” and you’ll notice the official company websites often appear under ad-supported options that offer toll-free numbers and “instant tech support.” What you end up with is often something different.

“I have heard this story over and over again,” [Paul Rosenberg] said. “Most people get to the point where they’re shaken down for $190 or whatever, and they stop.”

I don’t doubt that there are some legitimate tech support companies online that do help users and reach them through these paid Google links. But telling the difference between the good and bad actors can be difficult – especially for the average user.

Society seems to take it so much for granted that “the machine” of TV will shill for scammers that Google gets a free pass too. Meet the new scam-enabler/megaphone, same as the old scam-enabler/megaphone.

It’s such a weird doublethink. You skim through the infomercials late and night and don’t think about what damage could be done. Or maybe a relative of yours actually does lose a lot of money on something like this, and still no real sense of blame is put to the company in question that made money off the ads that helped the scam.

Outside of saltydroid.info, the only place so far I’ve seen anyone even try to make all the connections obvious was the South Park episode where they showed the whole chain of the Cash 4 Gold scams.

But I too am caught in the trap of pointing the finger whilest also enabling: I want Google to be held accountable for not caring about and so readily allowing scam-ads and all those scam-promoting youtube videos run through their service. But I also want Google Fiber to mega-win against the U.S. cable and telcos. So it’s time to put my doublethink glasses back on so I don’t notice the conflict.